BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN

BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN

The song on the radio says it’s a crying shame

and makes me remember when time was candy.

On the beach under a pineapple sun, Karen

taught me how to surf six-foot waves on a long board.

The tide pulled us like taffy toward the lonely end

of that sweeping cove until it was just us.

We laughed neck deep in the watermelon surge,

sand washing from under our feet all the way

into a sugar bowl night where our tracks

ended at a blanket between rounded dunes

to watch the starry sprinkles change color and melt.

Some Saturdays, we flew for hours, top down,

in my Austin Healy under a maple canopy

till we faded like ghosts into the distance.

Or that season in Wisconsin with Barbara,

Janice Joplin free. We walked licorice roads

right to the end of a starburst autumn.

And through the doors of Rusty’s Pub

to eat Pizza with Laurel and Hardy

flickering on the wall, or dance to

bubblegum rock and roll.

I took evening classes at the university,

and when I came home, it was hot chocolate

with marshmallows, and plans for our wedding

right into a winter of twenty degrees below zero.

On the plastic chair Kimberly planted in the garden,

I sip a taste of Four Roses and melt its

smooth caramel on my tongue.

We’ve had no time to take care of the weeds

this year, so the splashes of red and yellow

are tatterdemalion like the little wrappers

of empty foil in the candy dish on the coffee table.

My eyes crinkle, and I want to tell that old bluesman

it’s not always a crying shame that you did what you did,

what you did.

Copyright

Vol Lindsey

6/20/2009

Reviews

[willweb]

Totally creative and I love the abstract texture to this piece. We dance around different scenarios which share a common thread...we all have thing that felt right at the time, whether they were or not. I like the glimpses into the past here and the colorful and flavorful language used. Nice one.

[Vol]

Thanks for letting me know... one of the best things about decent poetry is the width of its appeal. I really enjoy visiting the past... My brain has a mind of its own, and travels to places back there without my permission and paints everything as seen through those proverbial rose-colored glasses.